


wait, let me in (i want to show you the shape i'm in)

by audenrain



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Frottage, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 00:27:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11137629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audenrain/pseuds/audenrain
Summary: She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop seeing Lup when she closed her eyes - Lup, stretched out on that hill with her eyes closed and her shoulders back and her spine arched, bathing in the sunshine even as she cursed it. Here, Lucretia could linger places she knew she couldn’t on the real Lup - her lips, parted just a little, the top and bottom of equal fullness - her throat, the lines of muscle and tendon there that led down to that star of freckles - her thighs, where her skirt had ridden up. On the black canvas of her eyelids she saw Lup from above - as if a few words from her might cause Lup’s eyes to open and her legs to part, inviting Lucretia in.Or, Lucretia is in an artistic rut, and Lup extends a helping hand.





	wait, let me in (i want to show you the shape i'm in)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to [my girlfriend](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/peakgay) and to jen for reading this over and giving me their thoughts <3
> 
> title is from hayley kiyoko's "pretty girl"

Lucretia was drawing when Lup found her. She felt like she was always drawing these days, but that was the point, wasn’t it? Thousands of hours. The vain pursuit of perfection in the hope that she would come close enough.

Writing was her vocation; art had always been her hobby, the thing she escaped to on those rare occasions when the words wouldn’t come. Now it was all flipped around. It would be a lie to say that her perfectionist tendencies vanished when she put brush to canvas, but they had never rattled her so bad as they did these days.

It would have been absurd to cart her pots of paint and water and a canvas and easel all the way up this hill, but she’d picked up a set of coloured pencils that were all right for practise. It was the light that kept eluding her. She couldn’t remember exactly the way the light had hit the plaza, all those decades ago - she’d never taken a photo. She’d never expected to have to - that place had always been dynamic, teeming with living energy, and if she aimed to capture it in stillness then it was only because the alternative was impossible. She had to figure out how to paint the little people as though they were only a second away from bursting into motion, and she had to do it without painting eyes or even faces.

The secret had to be in the light. She had tried everything else.

So she sat, drawing sketch after sketch of the city below - it looked nothing like the plaza, but it had plenty of people, too far off to see their faces, striped with the mid-afternoon sun. It was a template at least.

Summers here were blistering. Lucretia had a damp cloth draped over her bare shoulders and neck, magicked to stay cool and dry, but she wasn’t sure how much time she had left on the spell. It must be coming up on an hour that she’d been up here. An hour and three sketches.

“This is some bullshit,” Lup announced, and Lucretia’s coloured pencil skipped across the page, creating a beam of sunlight that had a definitive wobble to it.

“Hi,” said Lucretia, her disappointment at the mistake battling with the way her heart rose into her throat at the sight of Lup, cresting the hill on her left.

“Hi, chickadee,” said Lup, and flopped down on the grass next to her. “Does this weather make you wanna die, or what?”

Lucretia snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“You made a good fucking call getting that haircut.” Lucretia reached up to touch the back of her neck, where the hair was cropped close. It was a little longer on top, but not by much. The thing was, she'd never been all that vain about her own hair. And the way it stuck to her neck with sweat and got so heavy - she'd needed a change.

Lup leaned back on her elbows, dropped her head back and scrunching her eyes shut against the sunlight. Her face, usually matte from foundation, had a faint sheen to it that Lucretia knew matched her own. She didn't have Lup’s artful spray of freckles though. They cropped up all sorts of places Lucretia shouldn't be looking too long - her shoulders, her legs, her chest - it was a terrible cliche, and she’d never write it down, but those really _did_ look like a constellation - if she connected them up, they'd make a crooked star. The lowest point of it was hidden beneath the neckline of Lup’s tank top, but Lucretia knew it was there from memory.

The shirt hadn't been made to be a tank top. Lup liked the print of it - a three-eyed tiger in rainbow hues - and she'd hacked away the sleeves and the collar. Lucretia would’ve looked like a sartorial accident if she tried that; Lup made it looked effortlessly cool.

Lucretia tried to keep working on her sketch, even as Lup stretched out her legs and flexed her toes in her sandals. They were painted a neon orange.

“I swear, one more scorcher like this and I’m shaving my whole head,” Lup declared, and Lucretia stopped drawing, glancing sideways at Lup’s face to see just how serious she was being.

Lup had one eye cracked, looking at her too.

“Would you?” Lucretia asked, trying to sound casual. Lup could certainly pull it off, but… Lucretia would miss her beautiful hair, the way the yellow-gold of it stood out against her brown skin.

Lup heaved a sigh and shut her other eye. “Nah.”

They sat in silence for a little while, Lucretia widening the messed-up sunbeam until it lay straight again. She felt stuck all of a sudden, finding herself adding needless extra shading to already filled in places. Frustration mounted in her chest, tightening her throat.

“What are you thinking about?” Lup asked, as if she could sense Lucretia’s rising tension.

It was a moment before Lucretia answered. “I guess I’m thinking there’s a reason I never went into art professionally.”

“Hey,” said Lup, sitting up with a frown and turning face her, kneeling. “You’re a great artist.”

“No, that’s not -” Lucretia took a deep breath, trying to think of how to explain this to someone who seemed to be able to find joy in almost anything, whether she succeeded at it or not. Lup didn’t give her time, instead reaching out to take Lucretia’s sketchbook. Lucretia let her. She’d only started this book last week, and there were no secret wistful drawings of Lup. Every page of it was variations on the same scene.

Lup clicked her tongue, flipping through. “Can I ask you something? Why this scene?”

“It’s just practice. I’m going to paint the plaza, back home. I just can’t get the light right.”

Lup snapped the book shut, running her fingers along the soft leather cover. “So you’ve just been drawing this, over and over?”

Lucretia shrugged. She didn’t know what to say. How else did you get better at something?

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you _like_ any of these?” Lup held up the book. “I mean, they’re really good, but…”

Lucretia drew her knees up closer to her chest and stared out at the city below, all the people milling about, merchants and shoppers and lovers holding hands, children darting between busy adult feet. She wondered how many of them she’d drawn more than once without knowing it, how many she had immortalized in faceless, ant-sized glory. “I’ll like it when I get it right.”

Lup made a noise in her throat, something vaguely dubious and disapproving. “So a year of misery for like a day of pride?”

“That’s a little dramatic…”

Lup laughed, a short loud burst. “You’ve been climbing a fuckin’ mountain every day to sweat your eyeballs out drawing a picture you don’t even enjoy, over and over again, like you think suffering’s gonna make you a better artist. Sweetheart, you have more of a flair for the dramatic than you think.”

 _Sweetheart._ Lucretia bit down on her tongue. She didn’t bother countering that this hill, though steep, was hardly a mountain. About the rest of it, Lup wasn’t wrong.

“So what do _you_ suggest?” Lucretia asked, immediately regretting the way it came out - a little too acerbic to be good-natured. Lup mercifully took it in stride.

“Make art you love. All the best paintings of yours are the ones with people. You _like_ people. You like understanding them, studying them. That’s not a bad thing,” Lup added in a rush, as Lucretia shut her eyes and pressed her fingers to them. She hated the sound of that - _studying_. It was so cold. Was that how Lup saw her?

“Shit, this is coming out all wrong,” said Lup. She sounded uncharacteristically flustered, and it was enough to make Lucretia lower her hands and risk a glance. Lup was flicking her thumbnail over the embossed artist’s mark on the leather of the sketchbook - a nervous gesture. “What I mean is, I think I get - you want to paint something from home that none of us could bring with us, right? I think that’s great, I just think you gotta break up these practice sessions a bit and remind yourself what you like about art. Otherwise you’re just gonna end up hating it.” Her voice rose a little at the end, as if she was uncertain, or maybe just trying to soften the words.

“What about you?” Lucretia asked, trying to make the words sound as free from accusation as she could.

“Me? I’m playing hooky today. Needed a break. But yeah, we play lots of songs together, Barry and me. Honestly, we haven’t even settled on a performance piece yet.”

Lucretia tried to imagine what that was like, being so calm when the stakes were so high.

“Just pick a subject you actually like,” Lup said, her voice gaining conviction again. She put the book down on the grass and braced herself on it to lean in. “You loved that painting you did of us, on that beach world. You had fun with it, didn’t you?”

Lucretia nodded. That was the best thing she’d ever done, in her opinion - and it wasn’t that she thought it was her most skilled piece, or that it had been especially difficult. But that painting, for all that it had flaws, had that quality these drawings kept lacking. In it, they looked _alive_. Lup’s painted eyes looked out at the viewer with a playful glint that Lucretia hadn’t known she could capture.

“So paint us again. Or just one of us.” Lup grinned and tossed her hair, clearly posing. “Paint me.”

And Lucretia, idiot that she was, froze. The thought of having an excuse to stare as much as she liked, of Lup sitting still, just for her - it came to Lucretia at hurtling speed, and it was too much for her in that moment.

Lup faltered, an almost imperceptible shift in her posture. “Or somebody, whatever.” She cleared her throat. “I have faith in you, okay?”

Lucretia just nodded. She looked down at her book, still trapped beneath Lup’s hands, and Lup sat back, letting it go.

“Thank you,” Lucretia said, far too late. Lup shrugged and stood, brushing the grass off her knees. It had made little imprints in her skin. Lucretia picked up the book and squeezed it in her itching hands.

“No big,” said Lup, and squinted out at the city below. “Barry’s probably down there looking for me. Maybe I should take pity on him.”

Lucretia watched her go, making her way down the hill at a sedate pace that belied the bubbling energy with which she’d arrived. Something was still stopping Lucretia’s throat and tightening her chest, and it no longer felt like frustration.

 

 

 

 

She drew Lup that night, sitting up in bed with only lamplight to illuminate the page. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop seeing Lup when she closed her eyes - Lup, stretched out on that hill with her eyes closed and her shoulders back and her spine arched, bathing in the sunshine even as she cursed it. Here, Lucretia could linger places she knew she couldn’t on the real Lup - her lips, parted just a little, the top and bottom of equal fullness - her throat, the lines of muscle and tendon there that led down to that star of freckles - her thighs, where her skirt had ridden up. On the black canvas of her eyelids she saw Lup from above - as if a few words from her might cause Lup’s eyes to open and her legs to part, inviting Lucretia in.

 

 

 

 

Lucretia slept much later than usual the next morning. She should have set an alarm, but she’d been too relieved by the time sleep finally came to have that foresight. The ship had to be empty by now, surely. She wandered out to the kitchen in her pyjamas and immediately regretted it - Taako was sitting at the kitchen table, diving into a plate of eggs and potatoes.

“Morning,” he said, and nodded in the direction of the stove. “There’s plenty left.”

There was, in fact, at least enough food for two more. Taako had grown used to cooking for seven, she figured. It was still steaming hot.

There was salt and pepper on the table, and a bottle of some kind of sauce that the people here seemed to put on nearly everything - it was a little sweet and quite spicy - the sort of spice that went right to your nose. Lucretia helped herself to a little and tried not to notice that Taako was watching her.

“Everyone else is gone for the day, I assume?” she said, tapping the pepper shaker over her plate.

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,” Taako recited, punctuating this with a wave of his fork. Lucretia rolled her eyes. It would be one of _those_ days, then.

“You know,” said Lucretia, “I think you’ve proven yourself a sage to everyone already. You don’t need to keep carrying on conversations like this.”

“You don’t practise until you get it right,” Taako replied, taking another bite and giving himself time to chew and swallow before dispensing the rest of his wisdom. “You practise until you can’t get it wrong.”

Lucretia didn’t know why she’d bothered trying. “Well,” she said, “I can’t say I’m there yet either. Lup thinks -” She cut herself off. Taako had visibly perked up at that, like he’d been waiting for her to mention his sister’s name.

Taako waited, a good deal longer than she expected him to. She kept her mouth full of food.

“Misery is almost always the result of thinking,” Taako said eventually. Lucretia stared at him. Taako raised his eyebrows a little, as if to impress upon her the importance of what he’d said.

“You think I’m overthinking.” Lucretia pushed a piece of potato around her plate. “Did Lup talk to you about yesterday?”

Taako gave her a little smile, and she knew he wouldn’t say a word. Sibling loyalty.

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art,” he said instead.

“Yeah,” said Lucretia, “that’s pretty much what she was trying to tell me.” She sighed, propping her elbow on the table and leaning her face on her hand. She thought again of Lup’s offer, and her own foolish silence when she could have said anything at all, and the way Lup’s mood had stumbled and shifted. “I feel like a jackass.”

Taako laughed. He was ridiculous, but he was also somehow easier to talk to like this. At least his ability to tease was limited. He leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and said, “Nothing is more natural than mutual misunderstanding.”

And then, as if on cue, the strains of a violin floated down the hall - a chromatic scale. Lucretia blinked, looking from the open kitchen door to Taako.

“You said everyone was gone,” she said, realizing the instant she said it that in fact, he had not. He raised his eyebrows at her.

She looked back at the hallway. What now, then? She could gather her things and head up the hill again. She could take Lup’s advice, and draw someone from memory. She could take Lup’s offer, and draw Lup herself. She knew Lup was alone in her room - they didn’t have a piano on the ship.

She looked back at Taako. He was smirking. “What,” she demanded flatly.

“No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious,” he told her, obnoxiously sing-song.

She scowled and rose from the table, her chair pushing back with a loud scrape. “One of these days, I’m going to find the stupid book you keep pulling this stuff from and I’m going to burn it.”

Taako wagged a finger at her, calling after her as she headed down the hall. “If people cannot attack the idea, they attack the thinker!”

 

 

 

 

Lucretia stood in front of the closed door for a good thirty seconds, trying to decide the best moment to knock. She didn’t want to intrude on Lup’s practice time; and yet, if she didn’t do this now, she might never find the courage again. It had been a generous offer that Lup made, and it was possible it was nothing more than that, but she had given Lup the impression that it wasn’t appreciated, and that knowledge tied her stomach in knots.

 _Mutual misunderstanding, huh,_ she thought. Lup hit the top note of her scale and began again, a half step higher.

Lucretia took a slow breath and knocked on Lup’s door.

The music stopped. “Yeah?” came Lup’s voice, maybe a shade impatient. Lucretia charged ahead anyway.

“It’s Lucretia,” she called, curling her toes in her slippers. Her _slippers_ . Her fuzzy slippers, because she was still in her polka-dotted shorts and her ratty t-shirt from college that read _I Put the “Dying” in Studying!_ Fantastic.

There was a click, and then the door was opening to reveal Lup, barefoot and pyjama-clad too, violin still perched on her shoulder. She had on a blue satin robe, and her hair was piled in a bun on top of her head. There was a single strand that had escaped its pins, curling against her cheek. Lucretia felt a knot inside her come undone.

“Hi,” Lucretia said, and Lup smiled and lowered the violin. She leaned against the doorframe, tapping the end of her bow gently against her lips.

“Hi, chickadee,” she said, and there was no way it was an accident. Lucretia felt her face flush hot.

“I just wanted to say, um, that I really appreciated - it was a good suggestion you had, yesterday.” Lucretia shuffled her feet, and regretted it when Lup glanced down at them. Stupid fuzzy slippers.

“Which part?” Lup asked, still tapping her mouth, making it impossible to look anywhere else.

“You said I should paint you,” Lucretia said, as though Lup had actually forgotten. “I - I’d like to do that. If you’ll let me. I mean, I _can_ \- I could do it from memory, but if you have the time, sometime, it’s easier…”

Lup stepped aside, waving Lucretia in with a sweep of her bow. The room inside was dim but warmly lit, with only Lup’s desk lamp switched on.

“Now? I don’t have my stuff -”

“Okay,” said Lup, unruffled. “See you in a few minutes then.”

Lucretia nodded, stepping back and turning to go when Lup called her back.

“Lucretia. Should I get changed?”

Lucretia looked back. Lup was standing in the doorway with her hip cocked and one foot touching the back of her bare ankle. Her shorts were soft gray flannel, and her tank top had ridden up just a little, and the robe was just beginning to slip off of one shoulder. And she smiled.

“Gotcha,” said Lup, although Lucretia had said nothing at all. And she disappeared back into her room, but she didn’t shut the door.

 

 

 

 

Lup was waiting on the bed.

She’d turned her desk chair to face where she was sitting - tucked into the corner with an elbow on the low headboard, a pillow between her back and the wall. She’d taken her hair down so it tumbled over her shoulders. Her violin was back in its case, and she didn’t appear to have been doing anything except waiting. Lucretia tried not to let that feel like a sudden and sharp increase in pressure.

“I wasn’t sure if you had something specific in mind,” said Lup, shifting a little. Lucretia shook her head.

“Whatever’s comfortable,” she said, and began to unfold the easel.

“When’d you start painting?”

Lucretia spread her things out on Lup’s desk, still within reach. Her brushes and pencils she kept in a roll of cloth, each in their own pocket. She pulled out a pencil, testing the tip with her thumb. “In school,” she said. “It was just an elective. We all had to take a fine arts class. I didn’t expect…” She shrugged, sat down, and focused her eyes on the blank canvas before her. “But it was calming in a way nothing else was for me.”

She looked up at Lup, who was watching her. That could become distracting. Lup had expressive eyes, dark and perceptive, and the way they glittered in this yellow light made Lucretia feel like Lup knew something she did not.

Then she looked back at the canvas and started to draw.

“And you?” she asked. “You didn’t learn the violin from scratch, I know that much.”

“Nope,” said Lup. “Well, I took classes years ago, but it’d been a while even before we left home. To be honest, I figured my hands would’ve forgotten everything and I’d have to start all over. But it wasn’t so bad. Muscle memory’s more powerful than we give it credit for.”

Lucretia nodded absently. She had a bad habit of adding too much detail when she was sketching out paintings. At least with the lamp there was no worry of losing the light, but she knew she could lose momentum if she spent too long on this stage. She tried to lay Lup out on the page in broad sweeps. Suggestion, not precision. That was her mantra.

Taako’s shout from down the hall startled her so bad it was a miracle she didn’t screw up the painting. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!” he hollered, and Lup snickered.

“He’s off for the day then,” Lucretia guessed.

“Oh yeah. Who knows what he does with his time, but -” Lup gave a tiny shrug, and then seemed to remember herself. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, really.” Lucretia turned to the desk to start mixing her colours. “You’re not bored, are you?”

“I’m fine,” said Lup. “Are you?”

Lucretia was startled into looking up. “What?”

“I mean.” Lup was so still, and her gaze so intense. “You’re looking at me. I’m looking at you.”

“Well,” Lucretia said, adding another dollop of raw umber to what would be Lup’s skin. “I’m not half so nice to look at.”

She felt a rush of something like adrenaline. Was that too bold? Could she even be sure it was wanted? Lucretia felt like every flirtation was a minefield - she could read people so wrong sometimes.

Lup giggled, and it was nothing like Lucretia had heard from her before. She sounded _giddy_. Lucretia felt an answering surge in herself, and fought it back. The painting. That’s why they were here.

“You’re wrong,” Lup told her, several minutes later, after she’d sat back down and gotten to work on the cream-and-gray tones of Lup’s bedsheets.

Lucretia’s response was a questioning hum. She could feel herself sinking into it now, and only now did she realize how long it had been since she’d managed it.

“You’re plenty nice to look at. I wouldn’t have hiked up a mountain in a heat wave just to see you if you weren’t.”

Lucretia let herself smile, though she couldn’t answer. She had hit her stride, now; she didn’t trust herself to speak. She swirled her brush in the water, ridding it of the muted cream.

“And just so you know, this is an especially good look on you. Engaged. Excited. You didn’t have this look yesterday.”

 _Of course I didn’t_ , Lucretia thought dizzily, looking up at Lup’s legs, the right in deep shadow behind the left, lit up in gold.

“Do you think I could get you to look at me like this sometime? Just me, I mean, no canvas or paint.”

 _Oh,_ Lucretia wanted to say, _you have no idea_ , but her brush was almost moving on its own, now. She felt frenzied with the need to get it right, and exhilarated with the conviction that she would.

Lup didn’t seem upset by her silence. She didn’t say anything more for a long while, letting Lucretia pour everything out onto the canvas like she hadn’t in months. There was nothing like painting - the glide of thinned paint and the thick satisfaction of its natural viscosity. She used it for the swirls of Lup’s hair, dry brushed in ochre and then limned in chiffon yellow where the light hit its edges.

When Lup finally did speak again, Lucretia knew it was because her fever had begun to cool. The painting was there now, she could see it, although it was still unfinished. She felt the bizarre urge to touch it, but the paint would still be wet in places. Looking into the painting’s eyes, shadowed but still bright, she thought that she would be hard-pressed to outdo herself after this; and yet she would have to. She couldn’t present this painting, no matter how proud of it she was - for her sake, and for Lup’s.

“How’s it coming?” asked Lup, moving for the first time, a little quizzical tilt of her head.

Lucretia licked her dry lips, looking up from the painted Lup to the real one before her. “It’s good,” she said, and her voice crackled just a little. “You can get up. I’ve got everything I need, it’s just details and layers now.”

Lup stretched her arms over her head and popped her shoulder with a little wince, but she didn’t get up. “Are you gonna do that now?” she asked, and scooted forward until her legs were hanging over the edge of the bed.

“No, it has to dry first.” Lucretia was distracted for a moment, starting to pack up her supplies, when Lup spoke again.

“So you could, I dunno, hang out for a bit.”

Lucretia looked up. Lup had shrugged off her robe, and it sat in a pool of blue on the bedspread. It seemed a little absurd that the sight of her bare shoulders made Lucretia’s heart stutter, and yet…

Lucretia swallowed, and all of Lup’s words returned to her in a rush. She was not in a half-trance, now, and Lup had not been subtle. Which was a great relief, actually, but terrifying too. The ball was in her court. Lup was watching her patiently.

“Yes,” said Lucretia, wiping suddenly damp palms on her awful t-shirt. “I could hang out for a bit.”

It was only a few steps to the bed, where Lup sat with her knees together and her palms on her thighs, looking unusually prim. Was she nervous? Had Lucretia made her nervous, and not even realized it until this moment?

It felt like an eternity that she stood there, wondering what to do - sit next to her? In her lap? _That_ would be bold - when finally Lup reached up and took her hand.

“You good?” Lup said, her face creasing in concern. And Lucretia folded herself in half and sank her hand into Lup’s hair and kissed her. For all that Lup had not been expecting it, there was no awkward moment of tense lips nor any unexpected clash of teeth. Lup met her kiss as if it had been awaited for years. Lup’s lips were soft, covered in some kind of sweet balm, and when she tilted her head Lucretia felt the faintest brush of teeth, which made perfect sense. Lup could be no other kind of kisser.

Lup was shifting back a little, tugging on Lucretia’s hand, encouraging her until she put a knee up on the bed and then the other, straddling Lup’s legs. She felt the flicker of tongue on her upper lip, and then Lup broke the kiss to plant her hands on the backs of Lucretia’s thighs, pulling until Lucretia had to collapse from her kneeling position and into Lup’s lap.

“That’s better,” said Lup, and kissed her once more. It had been decades since Lucretia had kissed anyone, and the sensation had started off almost alien, a pleasure her body had forgotten. She wondered if it had been as long for Lup, because it seemed impossible that someone could be so good after so much time spent idle. Lup’s mouth yielded to every tentative advance Lucretia made, but she was far from passive. She pulled back to drag her teeth gently over Lucretia’s lip, and then she’d lean back in and bite down for the briefest of seconds; it didn’t hurt, but it sparked every nerve ending and drew out a ragged sigh. This made Lup smile wickedly, and Lucretia could not find it in herself to mind.

Lup tasted of tea, and she gripped at Lucretia’s waist like a lifeline when Lucretia licked into her mouth, pressing in deep alongside Lup’s tongue, and then pulled back and licked across instead. Lup let out a quiet whine, pressing closer, her jaw going slack for a moment. Perhaps Lup was right, and Lucretia ought to trust in muscle memory more; everything seemed to be coming back to her just fine. The thrill of pulling such a noise out of Lup was almost physical, electric.

Lup looked up her with half-lidded eyes when Lucretia finally pulled back to breathe. She brushed a curl back from Lup’s face and let herself feel overwhelmed for a moment by all the things she wanted to do, all the skin she wanted to put her mouth on.

Then she leaned down and kissed the side of Lup’s neck, open-mouthed, hungry. She wanted to put a mark there, but she didn’t know if it would be all right, so she didn’t linger, instead following the lines of Lup’s neck down to the base and nipping at her collarbone. Her neck was at an awkward angle, but it didn’t matter: Lup was pushing her hands up underneath Lucretia’s shirt so she could drag her nails down the skin there, and Lucretia shuddered. She bit a little harder.

“Oh,” Lup said, and there was that giddy laugh again, a little more breathless this time. Her head fell back a little, inviting more. “You’re full of surprises.”

Lucretia could smell her shampoo, sweet and fruity. She wondered how hard Lup would laugh if she buried her face in Lup’s hair just to breathe it in - at last she would be allowed, after years of catching the scent on stray breezes. It might be worth Lup’s teasing. But she could feel Lup shifting beneath her, trying to get friction where there was none, and she remembered what she wanted more than anything, which was to find out what other sounds she could draw out of Lup.

“What do you want?” she asked, leaning back just enough to look at Lup’s face, into her eyes, which were a little glazed over. Lup smiled.

“Anything,” she said, and she fell backwards, pulling Lucretia with her. Lucretia went, laughing, getting her hands out just in time to keep her from crushing Lup.

“There’s nothing in particular you’re thinking about?” Lucretia wondered, shifting once more, ducking down to kiss the edge of Lup’s jaw. “Have you ever imagined this before?”

“Of course,” Lup said, running her fingers along Lucretia’s thighs, pushing up the hem of her shorts a little. “But it’s not like I just had the one fantasy. I’m very creative, baby.”

Lucretia turned her face and took a surreptitious breath in Lup’s hair. “I’m nervous,” Lucretia admitted, a little muffled. Lup reached one hand up to touch the back of her neck.

“It's all good,” she said. The skin beneath her fingers prickled with awareness. “Come on.”

And she gave Lucretia a gentle push until she could move back up against the headboard, and then she patted her thighs, a clear invitation. Lucretia felt a little silly, shuffling forward on her knees, but she quelled that worry. It helped that Lup was watching her like she was going to pounce if Lucretia didn't hurry up.

“Hi,” Lup murmured, when Lucretia was finally there, kneeling on either side of her legs. Lucretia started to sink down but Lup grabbed a hold of her ass, sudden enough that Lucretia yelped out a laugh. “Hang on a second,” Lup said, and she leaned in and kissed the inch of skin between waistband and shirt hem. She used her nose to nudge the shirt up a little higher, till she could plant a kiss on Lucretia’s navel, and then a careful graze of her teeth. Lucretia bit her lip. She had never given much thought to her stomach before, but it was good, strangely good.

“Can I take this off?” Lup asked, looking up at Lucretia with big dark eyes that could never have been refused a day in their life. Lucretia’s face was on fire, but she tore the shirt off, like ripping off a bandage. Lup didn’t comment on her haste, just eased Lucretia down into her lap until she could lean in and take Lucretia’s nipple into her mouth.

Lucretia heard herself make a sound, a high-pitched thing that sort of squeaked its way out without her permission, but that was fine, she supposed: it only spurred Lup on. Lup’s mouth was gentle, at first, and then her tongue started to flick faster - a suggestion, or a promise - and Lucretia was mortified to realize she was arching her back, pushing forward into Lup’s mouth because she couldn’t speak to ask for more. She felt the faintest edge of teeth, so quick it could have been an accident, except that it went straight to her cunt and when she moaned, Lup grinned around her.

“Touch me,” Lucretia gasped, and a hand came up to her other breast, and that was definitely _nice_ but it wasn’t - “No, Lup, please - _touch_ me.”

“Oh,” said Lup, pleasantly surprised, “yeah, hell yeah, help me with these.” She was shoving Lucretia’s shorts down her hips but they quickly got stuck on her spread legs; Lucretia swung off just long enough to kick them off and then she was back, and Lup was pulling her in.

“Fuck, I can’t believe you’ve looked like this for fifty _years_ and we’re only doing this now.” Lup put one hand in the small of her back and the other on her inner thigh, thumb stroking little circles, close enough to be a vicious tease. Lucretia wanted to be pushy, but she also very much did not. Lup’s voice was low and liquid, and possibly a little hypnotic. “Someday soon I’m going to keep you in here all day, and you won’t put on a stitch of clothing.”

Lucretia tried to say _Really?_ but it only came out as a squeak; Lup’s hand had finally moved, parting Lucretia with thumb and forefinger - not touching her, not yet.

“Yeah,” Lup said, as if she’d understood.

Lucretia hadn’t known where to put her hands, so they’d wound up on Lup’s shoulders. It was helpful for her balance at least, kneeling like this. She tried to grind down although there was only air, and Lup let her try. It was only once she’d stilled that Lup finally touched her, a firm slide of her thumb across Lucretia’s clit, from zero right to sixty - Lucretia cried out, and Lup eased off a little, stroking just beneath now. “Can I -” And Lup touched her entrance, making soft little circles around it.

“Yes, please.” Lucretia felt silly for adding the please, but Lup smiled. She seemed to be very good at making Lup smile. Somehow she’d never realized just how much.

The first finger was a little strange, at first, like her body had forgotten what it felt like. Then she tilted her hips, and Lup curled her finger, and Lucretia remembered how _good_ this could feel. It was never the same trying to do it herself, but another person could get the angle she never could. Her breath caught in her throat. Lup was still smiling just a little. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lucretia sighed, feeling her shoulders drop and her toes curl. Lup was using her thumb to spread Lucretia’s wetness, and when her touch glided across Lucretia’s clit again it was impossible to hold back a shaking cry. Lup pressed down harder, and Lucretia’s pitch soared humiliatingly high - and then she backed off, making little circles just around it instead, and all the while she was fucking Lucretia slowly, steadily.

“Another,” Lucretia begged, squeezing Lup’s shoulders. “I need -”

“I’ve got you,” Lup said, and she did. Lucretia could feel the confidence in her touch, and she could have melted if she thought Lup could hold her up like this. Lup’s thumb had moved down to stroke her folds, and the intensity was far less but it was still so _nice_. There was another finger pushing into her now, easier than she’d expected, and she tried to spread her legs farther apart, push her hips to meet the motion of Lup’s hand.

Lup leaned in and closed her teeth around Lucretia’s nipple, and in the same moment drove her fingers deep into Lucretia and then, god, she was tightening the little circles of her thumb until Lucretia felt like her whole existence was centred on that spot, and suddenly - she was coming.

It was a sudden spike that took her utterly by surprise, and it was wonderful but it left her still _hungry_ , but filled with something new. She didn't know where it came from, but she wasn't nervous anymore. Lup’s pressure was lifting, letting her come down; when she felt steady again, she knocked Lup’s hand aside and tucked her fingers into the waistband of Lup’s shorts. “Can I -” And she lifted herself off Lup’s lap just enough to allow the shorts to be shimmied down Lup’s hips. Lup watched, rapt, as she gathered her own wetness on her hand.

“Oh,” said Lup, her tone wondering, and then another _oh!_ with a good deal more breath in it when Lucretia wrapped that hand around her and gave a few slow strokes.

Lucretia was still nearly aching, and when she shifted in closer and slid her cunt down the length of Lup’s cock, it was like licking a battery. Lup’s head fell back, hitting the wall with a thunk, and Lucretia hesitated.

“I’m fine, I’m good, shit -” Lup’s voice was hoarse, and her hands were flexing against the sheets. “Don't stop.”

Lucretia rose up again, guiding Lup’s cock to her entrance at just the right angle that they slid together again when she lowered her hips. Slow, slow - everything felt so hot and sharp and she knew Lup wasn't close. She had to hold herself back, stay in this perfect state of oversensitive but not raw - she hadn't known how intense this would feel, and she couldn't let it end too soon.

Lup curled her hands around the backs of Lucretia’s thighs, her eyes closing as Lucretia slid them together again. It was so slick, so wonderful, the sensation of Lup opening her up, the overwhelming intimacy of being so completely pressed together.

She tried to focus on Lup instead of herself, timing the strokes of her palm to mirror the friction between them. Lup was letting out these little sighs with an edge to them, and her body tensed at times, but she seemed content to let Lucretia run the show. This was new and it should have been terrifying, but all Lucretia felt was acute focus and a growing determination.

And _good._ She felt fucking good, shivery and on edge. She tried to angle herself so that her clit didn't get too much pressure, but it was difficult, and her stomach muscles were beginning to ache. She could feel Lup's pulse and her own, mounting in rhythm, and she dropped her head back, mirroring Lup. _All_ her muscles were starting to burn now, her thighs most of all, but the idea of stopping was unthinkable.

Suddenly Lup’s hands were moving, taking hold of Lucretia’s hips and hurrying her movements. “Fuck,” Lup choked out, and when Lucretia looked down she saw that Lup was gazing up at her with dazed shining eyes and a look like she was seeing god.

“Shut up,” Lucretia whined, scrunching her eyes shut until Lup dug her nails into Lucretia’s skin.

“I will not, you're a fucking work of art, up there bouncing like that like - god, Lucretia, you can't imagine -”

“You _-_ ” Lucretia wanted to tell her that she ought to see _herself_ , the way she glowed, the sight of her bitten-red lips, but just then Lup tugged at her hips, changing their angle, and the head of Lup’s cock pressed up against her clit, and stars crackled in her periphery. “ _Lup!_ ”

“Yeah,” Lup hissed, and then she laughed, a little hysterical, cutting herself off with her teeth in her lower lip. She was groaning, deep in her throat, snapping her hips up to meet Lucretia, and when Lucretia palmed the head of Lup’s cock, the sound broke into a squeak.

“Lup, please, I can’t - you feel -”

Lup cut her off, a litany of slurred _touchmetouchmetouchme_ , and she did, and Lup pulsed in her hand and against her cunt and for a moment her eyes couldn’t focus at all. She felt every jolt and heard herself echo Lup - _yeah, fuck, yeah_ \- and she thought she might never be able to move her legs again.

When her vision cleared, she saw Lup leaning back against the wall with her eyes shut and her lips parted, a sight that demanded a kiss. She sank down, her strength sapped, and if her kiss was off-centre and messy, it didn’t matter. Their shuddering breaths mingled, along with their sweat and spit and _god,_ their come. Lucretia felt sticky all over and she wouldn’t have moved for the world.

She thought about the painting, still sitting a few feet away on its easel - about the details that had yet to be added, the last few layers needed to make the colours pop. She was looking forward to it. She felt that anticipation blossoming inside of her like it was new.

“How,” Lucretia murmured, when she finally found her voice. It was not a complete question, and she didn’t know how to complete it either. How did Lup know how to drag her out of her rut? How did Lup know exactly what she’d been thinking every time they spoke? How did Lup know how to put her so at ease, and make her feel so good?

“Magic,” Lup panted, and laughed again, another tiny bout of hysteria. She rode it out this time. She was _happy_. Lucretia held herself up just enough to look Lup in the eyes and see the sparkle there, and her heart swelled painfully in her chest. “Magic, baby,” Lup reiterated, reaching up to trace the shape of Lucretia’s face.

“Of course.” Lucretia let her head fall onto Lup’s shoulder, let their damp skin stick and her muscles go slack. Lup hummed and raked her fingertips over Lucretia’s scalp through her shorn hair.

“Just like that?” she asked, and it seemed a little vague, but the answer was _yes, absolutely_ , whatever what she meant. Lucretia couldn’t imagine having a shred of doubt in Lup ever again.


End file.
